The whole life lies in the verb seeing.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
It is done. Once again the Fire has penetrated the earth, not with the sudden crash of thunderbolt, riving the mountain tops: does the Master break down doors to enter His own home? Without earthquake, or thunderclap: the flame has lit up the whole world from within.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Transformation can occur quietly and profoundly from within rather than through dramatic upheaval.
In this quote, Pierre Teilhard De Chardin reflects on the nature of change and illumination in the world. He suggests that true transformation does not always come through catastrophic events or overt displays of power; rather, it can arise subtly and impact the world profoundly from within, akin to a gentle flame that brightens everything around it without the need for a loud announcement or forceful entry.
Themes
TransformationInner LightSubtle ChangeIlluminationPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a workshop on personal development to inspire attendees about inner growth.
More from Pierre Teilhard De Chardin
All quotes →Religion and science are the two conjugated faces or phases of one and the same complete act of knowledge - the only one which can embrace the past and future of evolution and so contemplate, measure and fulfil them.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
The mineral world is a much more supple and mobile world than could be imagined by the science of the ancients. Vaguely analogous to the metamorphoses of living creatures, there occurs in the most solid rocks, as we now know, perpetual transformation of a mineral species.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
We may, perhaps, imagine that the creation was finished long ago. But that would be quite wrong. It continues still more magnificently, and at the highest levels of the world.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves. All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of men and the earth.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
If there is one thing I fear less than everything else, it is, I believe, persecution for my opinions. There are a good many points about which I may be diffident, but when it comes to questions of Truth and intellectual independence, there is no holding me - I can envisage no finer end than to sacrifice oneself for a conviction.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
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Remember God more often than you breathe.
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A Paradox, the doughnut hole. Empty space, once, but now they've learned to market even that. A minus quantity; nothing, rendered edible. I wondered if they might be used-metaphorically, of course-to demonstrate the existence of God. Does naming a sphere of nothingness transmute it into being?
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Our obligation to fight pollution traces the roots of its persuasion to that same moral mountaintop from which my father lent his voice to the voiceless. The pursuit of civil equality in health helped build our environmental laws.
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This mindless tolerance, which places observable scientific facts, subject to proof, on the same level as unprovable supernatural fantasy, has played a major role in the resurgence of both anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism.
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This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence. There must be darkness to see the stars. The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love Nature" while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled Nature.'" The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of "Nature" : but beavers and their dams are.
Robert A. HeinleinRead